Rival Schools – United By Fate
(Island)

After aurally ingesting the Rival Schools album, United By Fate, I thought to myself, “Hey you know what? That album wasn’t half bad.”

That is to say, the ratio of good songs to bad songs left the scale tipped in favour of the positives. Fronted by ex-Quicksand member Walter Schrefiels and featuring a host of other former hardcore scenesters (a fact generously overpromoted by Island Records – considering this album’s sound), it is ironically the slow, melody laden songs which stand out on this much anticipated release.

Having heard several of the Rival Schools songs on demos under the moniker, World’s Fastest Car (Walter’s former, never released side project), I was not taken completely by surprise with the laidback exploratory nature of the album.

Desperate for a way to describe Rival School’s sound, I deconstructed the name itself, a search which unearthed an eerie communique. Rival spelled backwards is “lavir”, which is phonetically similar to “liver”. School rhymes with cool, and also rhymes with pool. Liverpool… brit pop? Hmmm… I think I took a wrong turn somewhere. In the very least, Rival Schools bleed brooding optimism, parting clouds to reveal a lush blue sky as you watch from far below, your river raft leading you to a heartfelt, uncharted territory.

Everything Has Its Point Today and Undercovers On both make an impact, despite their soft spoken sound, while a third noteworthy song, Travel By Telephone, brings flashbacks of Quicksand and helps bridge the gap between the album’s emo and metal aspects.

Where Rival Schools falls short is their few heavier, crunch driven songs, which seem unenthusiastic and out of place. Holding Sand, for example, repeats a simple metallic riff for the majority of its four minutes and does little to compliment the progressive sound the rest of the album speaks with.

Despite their few weaknesses, I look forward to whatever the future may hold for Rival Schools, as theirs is truly “a sound that can’t be still”. — Kube